1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radio selective call apparatus, and more particularly to a selective call radio apparatus having a function of displaying received messages on a display section.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional selective call radio apparatus, received messages are stored in a storage section in the sequence of reception or in the predetermined order of priority. Instead, the received messages are classified into categories. The received messages stored in the storage section are read out and displayed on a display section upon a switching operation performed by a user of the selective call radio apparatus. Such a selective call radio apparatus is disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Patent Application (JP-A-Heisei 3-175827) and Japanese Examined Patent Application (JP-B-Heisei 6-50838).
Dozens of messages such as news and weather forecasts are sent per day in data receiving service to the selective call radio apparatus described above. However, those received messages are no read out and displayed each time every message is received. In ordinary use, whether any message has arrived at the receiver is checked occasionally. If there are any messages not yet read, the messages received after the previously read message are read out successively. Therefore, depending on condition, tens of messages may be read out successively. The receiver operates in such a manner that it displays the received latest message on the display section, when it receives the latest message during the readout of the messages.
More specifically, as shown in FIG. 1, in the conventional method, the messages are read out in the order of the message #1 (201)→ the message #2 (202)→ the message #3 (#203)→. . . → the message #m (204). If the latest message is received during the reading of the message #m (204), the latest message (205) is displayed firstly. The next message to be displayed after the user finishes viewing the latest message is the message #1 (206). Since the latest message is received, the message #1 is secondary in recentness to the latest message. If the user continues the message reading, the message #2 (207) and the message #3 (203) are displayed in the described order.
In this way, the conventional selective call radio apparatus described above operates in such a manner that when it receives the latest message during the readout of the stored messages, it displays the received latest message on the display section. In this case, however, the latest message is suddenly displayed while the user is viewing the messages. Such a display operation is confusing for the user. This causes a problem in that the user cannot distinguish the latest message from other messages. That is, there is the possibility of the user mistaking the latest message for a message received in the past.
Also, when the user reads out the next message after the user has viewed the latest message, the message #1 is displayed again, regardless of whether the user had viewed the messages until then.